The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1887-09-08

Women Attend the Bath, which II Quit,
Serious A6Air-0ray Hair Unknown
4 Very Punotilious Raoo-The Children
Eastern women are pitied % unhappy
beings, on the theory that they are i'm
prisoned in gilded cage closely guarded
BY very ugly eunuchs, and reduced t
spend their time in attempting to catcl
the smiles Of a jealous lord, as they spraw
In graceful attitudes on silken cushions
Their only other occupation is under
stood to be devouring immense quantitie.
Of sweetmeats in order to become corpu
lent; their only amusement the pleasure
Of poisoning rival wives, and hearing in
terminable stories of the Arabian
Nights" pattern.
1t 10 true that with the Turk beauty
must be fat. 1t is not SO, however, with
the Persian; he has the appreciation OF
. connoisseur for the .j,ste milieu A stout
woman in Persia is spoken Of as ian el-
ephant," while the leaner ones are gen.
orally called "camels." Though they
deal largely in hyperbole, the Persians
do not mince matters in speaking of the
fair sex.
The veil, which is habitually worn out
OF doors even by the very poor in all
great towns Of Persia, though its use is
unknown among the tribes who form at
least third of the whole population, is
clung to by the women as privilege; it
10 in fact domino. The Persian woman
out of doors is unrecognizable even by
her husband. She sees without being
seen, and in the veil it is impossible to
detect the age of the wearer, and the
Persian lady is nearly always married at
fourteen, she begins to fade at seven. and
twenty at latest, at thirty she appears
fifty, and there are only two dentists in
the whole of Persia.
Polygamy is the luxury of the rich;
with the upper and middle classes bigamy
is the rule. A mans first alliance is q
marriage de convenance, the second either a
marriage for love or for the qualification
OF vanity. When your Persian brings
home q second wife there is usually q
scene which lasts for a week or two;
there is struggle for supremacy, but it
is soon over. Both wives do their best
to please the master of the house; but
they do not attempt to poison each other,
unless in very exceptional circumstances.
But Persian ladies still believe in the
efficacy of love-philters, and many an
abomination is secretly administered to
unfortunate husbands. Happily, the
love-philter, though usually composed of
horrible ingredients, is quite harmless.
The bath takes up good deal of the
time of all Persian women. Even the
poorest will attend the Hammam at least
once week. For the lady the bath is
one of the serious affairs of life, and
takes up daily from two to four hours of
her time. 1t is something more than our
idea of q bath. The victim is scraped
and rubbed and parboiled. The soles of
the feet are pumiced until they are soft
and tender as those of little child. The
hair is thoroughly washed by means of
hot water and the saponaceous clay for
which Shiraz is celebrated. Then the at
mix in brazen bowl the aro-
matte henna with the requisite amount
of lemon juice, till brown paste of the
of cruel is produced, and
several handfuls of the repulsive-l looking
are smeared over the lady's
head. Then the hair, collected into a
mass, is bound up with cabbage-leaves.
small quantities of the dye are smeared
'ver the eyebrows; the soles of the
eet, the toes, the palms of the hands,
md the finger-tips are also covered
With it, And now the lady has to sit
still for from one to three
lours, till, like a meerschaum pipe, she |
olors; and it is exactly the color OBJ
aimed on the best specimens of pipes |
hat is most fashionable among the Per-
ian ladies. Day after day the bath is
hronged with women, each sitting per-
ectly still for the color to "take." But
hey have their reward; for the henna
yes the hair beautiful deep warm
hestnut: hence gray hair is unknown
mong Persian ladies. While the color
ng process has been going on tongues
ave been running, and q good deal of
candal has been exchanged. The female
arber, with pair of tweezers, has re-
moved every outlying hair from the
egion Of the lady's eyebrows. It is the
mbition of every Persian woman that her
yebrows shall meet, or at least appear to
o so; SO attractive are eyebrows that
aeet that they are called the bridge of
,ve." The first care, then, of the Persian
esuty is with little pencil of anthony
D unite her eyebrows, and then she pro-
eeds to make them appear of unnatural
hickness; her eyelashes are penciled,
%, In . manner not unknown to our
wn countrywomen. By this time the
ldy will have smoked many kalians or
she will have partaken of
%, and regaled herself with coffee;
ed sherbets, too, will not have been
Ianting. Her finger-tips, nails and
aims, % well as the soles of her
vet and her toes, have attained bright
hestnut hue which will last q week.
he hair is carefully washed once more.
10 seldom under a yard long, often
luch more; for the Persian woman
ever cuts her hair, except in front per-
aps, when two heavy love-locks are
1T ON either side Of the face. The
|dies now return home to their noon
~ breakfasts. After breakfast there is
enerally siesta, and this in hot coun-
y ID almost necessity. About four,
u and pipes appear; and then the lady
eceives callers or pays visits or per-
aps does . little shopping, or takes the
II mounted on her ambling mule or q
onkey of snowy whiteness.
The Persians are q very punctilious
lce; and It is the sensible custom of the
ountry, on making call, to announce
eforehand that you are coming. A
,cusand and one little points of pune
lio have to be observed q certain num-
bI OF cuDe of tea ara d ,.i0,ls4ar three